


what's best

by FortySevens



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Developing Relationship, F/M, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, Kate is in love with one (1) absolute moron, Post-Amaru (From Dusk Till Dawn), Seth is a little insecure sometimes, Sharing a Bed, okay a lot insecure a lot of the time)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:13:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27027127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FortySevens/pseuds/FortySevens
Summary: The only other thing she can think of is that Seth’s finally getting tired of living in a glorified hotel room—it’s a million times nicer than any of the ones they stayed in while in Mexico, but it’s still just a room with an attached bathroom and no kitchen or living space or any real storage.The safe under his side of the bed does not count.
Relationships: Kate Fuller/Seth Gecko
Comments: 22
Kudos: 87





	what's best

**Author's Note:**

  * For [YossarianDawn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/YossarianDawn/gifts).



> Another one prompted by YossarianDawn, this one was the prompt: against skin, bed, comfort. Hope I did it justice!

“Call me after your next gig, okay? I love you. Bye Scott.”

The dial tone hums in her ear for the second before she pulls it away, slides it into the pocket of the hoodie she stole from the depths of Seth’s closet oh—sometime after moving into his room at Jacknife Jed’s.

It’s been a little more than six months since they put that mess in Matanzas behind them, a slow-going recovery, but recovery all the same.

Kate’s even close to being able to sleep through the night again, which she counts as probably her biggest victory.

And she’s taking any and all victories where she can get them these days.

Sure, her sleep schedule means she’s up half the night no matter what, but so is everyone else who works in and around the truck stop—it all balances out, more or less.

It’s not the life she ever thought she’d have, but she’s happy with it.

And the people that she’s with.

Kate pushes off the cushioned lounge chair by the fire pit that someone set up near the building where all of Jeds’ full-time staff lives, including the room she shares with Seth and Richie’s room two doors down.

A cold wind whips through the other outbuildings behind the truck stop, and Kate pulls the hoodie tighter around her body as she shivers and scuttles over to her room.

She slips inside and arches a brow at how dark it is, the only light coming from the lamp on the nightstand next to her side of the bed.

Usually she’s the first of them to try to attempt to sleep—in fact, _not once_ in the last six months has she gone to bed after Seth.

Through the darkness, she sees Seth curled up on his side, practically hovering by the far edge of the bed. He has one arm bent under his pillow while the other clutches the blankets up to his chest, dragging them away from where they’re usually tucked in neatly on her side.

Toeing out of her obnoxious fuzzy unicorn slippers—a gift from Richie after a really, really bad night early on, which she mostly wears because Seth is _extremely_ vocal about how absurd he thinks they are—she pads deeper into the room and closes the door to the attached bathroom behind her, groping in the dark for the light switch.

She flinches when the light turns on, in part because of the dimness in the other room and how long it takes for her eyes to adjust, but mostly because it’s still so hard to look at herself in the mirror, to see the exhaustion she can’t quite kick and the bright red hair that, try as she might, can’t die back to the color it was before she died.

And she did die.

Every single time she looks at herself in the mirror, she remembers that.

Remembers the pain of the two bullets Carlos put in her back.

Remembers the venom she hissed at Richie and Scott when they tried to convince her to let them turn her.

Remembers feeling Seth’s own heartbreak when Richie told him about what happened at the blood well.

Remembers—

Too goddamn much.

Tearing her gaze away from the mirror, Kate braces her hands on the counter and takes one deep breath, and then another and another until her skittering heartbeat settles back to normal. Squaring her shoulders, she scrapes her hair back into a bun so she can wash her face and brush her teeth.

It’s no use to dwell on what can’t be changed.

She survived.

In spite of everything that’s happened, she walked right out of hell and earned her personal redemption when she brought Richie with her and ripped Amaru’s heart out with her bare hands.

Turning off the light with a definitive smack of her hand on the switch plate, Kate pads back out of the bathroom, strips out of Seth’s hoodie and drapes it on the arm of the couch that’s on the other side of the room from the bed.

It’s not until she slides into her side of the bed in her loose t-shirt and sleep shorts, shifting toward the middle so she can actually get _under_ the blankets that Seth’s hogging, that she realizes he’s not even asleep.

Instead, he’s doing that _thing_ he used to do in Mexico before he started getting high to avoid all his problems—lie in bed and sulk in the dark because something didn’t go his way.

They had a _lot_ of those moments during those first few weeks.

Kate wracks her mind about what he could possibly be stewing about, but comes up short.

Jed’s is running as smoothly as ever, he hasn’t been fighting with Richie—well, any more than their usual brotherly sniping—she’s been more or less calm and nightmare-free lately, so they’re both sleeping better, the new hires that Kisa sent their way on her tour of the country embracing her role as the La Diosa the culebras have worshipped for centuries are integrating seamlessly with the rest of the staff, and Seth himself has been making noises about putting together a bank job that he’s pretty excited about.

And to be honest, she is too.

The only other thing that she can think of is that Seth’s _finally_ getting tired of living in a glorified hotel room—it’s a million times nicer than any of the ones they stayed in while in Mexico, but it’s still just a room with an attached bathroom and no kitchen or living space or any real storage.

The safe under his side of the bed _does not_ count.

In their downtime, she and Richie have been going through the portfolio of private rental properties scattered around Houston and the outlying areas of the city, which the brothers inherited after taking over Malvado’s operation.

It’s both incredibly robust _and_ surprisingly legal.

She may or may not have her eye on a large, two-story house—in a gated community on a quiet cul du sac, right on the lake, with a wraparound porch and a truly gorgeous chef’s kitchen that she can’t wait to start baking in—and she’s trying to find a way to convince Seth that having to commute to work isn’t the same as being a boring, white-collar asshole when the operation is almost entirely illegal.

That might actually be the only way to explain it to him.

Reaching back, Kate flicks the light off before rolling over to face his back, waits for her eyes to adjust to the darkness.

She pulls what’s left of the blankets up to her shoulders as she keeps her eyes on Seth’s back, and as much as she just wants him to _talk_ to her, she knows she’s going to have to be the one to make it happen.

Because the alternative?

To just sit and let him stew on whatever it is that bit his backside—

That’s what she did in Mexico, and it didn’t end well.

Not for her. Not for any of them.

She’s not going to let that happen again. She can’t afford to let it happen, won’t survive Seth backsliding into another heroin-induced haze.

The prospect—it’s _terrifying_.

Kate huffs a sigh, loud in the silence of their room, and curls her fingers around the edge of the blanket somewhere in the miles of space between them, tugs to get Seth’s attention, “I know you’re awake.”

Her eyes must be adjusting again, because through the shadows, Kate sees the way Seth’s shoulder hikes up toward his ear. He probably could have gone on pretending that he’s asleep, but Kate knows there are very few things Seth Gecko loves more than to be the one who has the last word, so all she has to do is give him the opportunity, and wait.

“It’s nothing Kate,” he grumbles, just barely loud enough to be heard. “Just go to sleep.”

Huffing a breath through her nose, Kate inches just a little closer across this Seth-imposed no-man’s land.

She really has no idea what could be wrong, and something anxious twists deep in her stomach at what it could possibly be, “Come on,” she tugs at the blanket again. “Talk to me, Seth.”

“You don’t need to worry about me Kate, just focus on what’s best for _you_.”

It takes a second to parse his worse, to understand the emphasis the second time he said, _you_ —but then it clicks.

“Did you hear what I said to Scott?”

She remembers hearing the crunch of footsteps on gravel while she was on the phone, but there are always so many people milling around at all hours, that she didn’t think anything of it.

But of course it would be Seth.

And _of course_ it would be Seth overhearing her in that moment of her side of her conversation with Scott.

Just her luck.

Again, one shoulder rises jerkily, but Seth doesn’t say anything, doesn’t roll over to look at her, and Kate sighs, resists the urge to poke him in the back where she knows from the mess that was their Mexican _non_ -Honeymoon that he’s ticklish, “Seth-”

“You really don’t need to say anything,” he grumbles into the vicinity of the arm he’s lying on, like an ostrich trying to dig its head into the sand. “When are you gonna go?”

“Seth, turn around.”

“Don’t bullshit me. I can take it.”

Kate scrubs her palm over her face before turning a scowl to the back of his head, “Come on, Seth. Turn around.”

“It’s _fine_ , Kate. Do whatever you want. We can go to sleep now.”

Grabbing one of the spare pillows from the ever-stretching miles of space between them, Kate drops it over her face and groans loudly into it before pushing it away with enough force that it goes flying to the floor, “Just turn around Seth.”

He doesn’t budge, and Kate uses her arm to propel her across the bed, presses up against his back and slings an arm around his waist. The warmth that _radiates_ off him all the time hits her cool skin like a shock, and she has to hold off the urge to shudder against him as she tucks her face against his shoulder.

Seth tenses up against her even as she clings and fits her legs against the backs of his knees—she knows he can _easily_ push her away if he really wanted to, could get up and run away from her because there’s nothing chaining him to this room, nothing keeping him in this bed.

But he doesn’t.

Which means Seth has spent the last forty-odd minutes absolutely _stewing_ in the idea that she wants to leave him, while also taking what little crumbs he thinks he can get from her.

Instead of just _talking_ about it.

God, he can be such a _moron_ sometimes.

“I’m not going to say what I have to say if you don’t turn the _heck_ over and _look_ at me,” she says against the warm skin of his shoulder as she jostles his elbow with the flat of her palm. “Come _on_ Seth.”

It’s a minute before Seth finally gives in, groans before he moves, and Kate shifts back a little to give him the space to do so without kneeing her in the stomach.

“Well?”

Kate presses her hands to her face to hold back what she _really_ wants to say to him, “You are _so_ frustrating sometimes!”

Between her fingers, she sees him gape at her, “What is so goddamn frustrating about wanting to respect your wishes?”

“Seth, I say this with love,” she drops her hands and looks him in the eye. “But you have _no idea_ what you’re talking about.”

“I don’t? I don’t understand that your brother asked you to come on the road with him and the band and you said you’d think about it—which we both know that, with him, it’s code for, _yes, I just have to figure out how to break it to my roommate_? Well _enlighten me_ Kate, or we can just go to bed and pretend this conversation never happened.

_Jesus Christ_.

“Do you know how many times Scott’s asked me to come with him? It’s _every time_ he calls,” she loves her brother, she really does, and at this point she knows Scott does it because he feels like he’s obligated to give her some kind of out, which she does not want to take. Not at all. “I always tell him I’ll think about it because he doesn’t want to hear me say that the answer is always _no_. But that’s what the answer _is_.”

“Kate-”

Shaking her head, she cuts him off, “This isn’t bullshit, it’s the truth. I’m not going anywhere, Seth. I don’t want to.”

For a flash of a second, Seth looks like he _wants_ to believe her, but then it disappears, leaving his usual brand of disbelief when he’s faced with what’s potentially a good thing, “You sure about that?”

“Of course I’m sure. I keep my word, Seth.”

He winces and looks away, and Kate presses her palm back to his shoulder, “What is it?” She watches his mouth work like he’s trying to hold back from saying something. “Seth? Talk to me.”

“That night I—the night we parted ways, I shot up,” she winces at the all-too vivid memories of the drug kit they carried from motel to motel across Mexico, the needles they both slid into the veins in his right arm and the snakebites on his neck. “The last time I did before getting clean. Hallucinated pretty hard and I—I thought you came back.”

She’s never been so happy that it’s dark, because her cheeks go hot at the thought that after everything that happened on that awful, awful day, almost dying and the explosive argument that followed, Seth _still_ thought of her.

“Yeah?” She asks, hand sliding down his shoulder to his bicep and then back up. “What happened?”

“You told me you could never leave me,” Seth clears his throat, looks distinctly uncomfortable. “And then you turned into a Culebra and ripped my throat out.”

Well then.

“Wow,” she manages around the sudden tightness gripping her throat. “When your brain wants to mess with you, it _really_ messes with you.”

Seth lets out a shaky breath, scapes a palm over his face, the sound of his stubble scritching over the pads of his fingers loud in the quiet of their room, “Uh, yeah. Guess it is.”

Kate tilts her head, watches him for a minute, watches the way he looks back at her, how he probably feels like he’s under a microscope, “So, are we good now?”

“Yeah,” Seth nods, but then he says. “But he’s your family. I _would_ understand if you wanted to go with him.”

“Scott is my family,” Kate slides her hand down from his shoulder to rest over his heart. “But so are you.”

A choking noise sounds from the back of his throat, and Seth curls his hand around hers, squeezes hard. They lie there, face to face, for long moments, blanketed by the silence.

“Besides,” Kate says into the quiet. “Living on a glorified tour bus and having to listen to vampire-twisted Christian-rock at all hours? I love Scott, but I can only take Fanglorious in small doses.”

Seth laughs hard enough that tears leak from the corners of his eyes, which is the exact reaction she hoped for, “God, their stuff is _terrible_.”

Okay, yeah. He’s really not wrong about that. Honest to God, she has no idea how her brother has any kind of following, indie or otherwise.

They settle back into silence—Kate isn’t sure where to go from here, and even if that answer was just to go to sleep, now that relief has flooded her body and is letting the knots in her stomach release.

But Seth hasn’t let go of her, has started stroking his thumb back and forth over the tips of her fingers, making sparks shoot down her hand and all the way up her arm.

Seth ducks his head a little, and Kate reaches out with her other hand, curls it around his wrist, “What is it?”

“Nothing, it’s just-” he breaks off, and this time he does let go of her hand, reaches across the scant space between them, fingers gently sliding up the curve of her jaw before threading into her hair at the nape of her neck.

The warmth of his hand radiates down her neck, and this time she does gasp while Seth leans in, slowly drags his nose down the length of hers.

And then he stops, and Kate feels like the entire universe is holding its breath.

He’s trying to give her an out—like she didn’t follow his sorry ass around Mexico for three months, like she didn’t tell him how she felt about him at the gates of hell, like she hasn’t been sharing his bed for _six months_.

How does he not realize this was _never_ not on the table?

For God’s sake, she’s seen his _soul_ and it’s _his_ blood running through her veins.

Then again, he did think she was going to up and leave after hearing an out-of-context comment she made while on the phone.

Kate closes the distance between them, presses her mouth to his, and it’s—

It’s soft and it’s intimate and she’s so overwhelmed that this is actually _happening_ that she doesn’t at all resist when Seth groans, tightens his grip on her hair and deepens the kiss.

The slide of his tongue against hers is almost painfully sweet, and Kate shifts even closer, her hand sliding back up his shoulder to rest on his neck. She strokes her thumb over his snakebites and swallows the groan that sounds from deep in his throat.

Time passes—Kate can’t be bothered to wonder how long when she has so many better things to do—and Seth’s palm slides from her hair, sneaks under the covers and down her side before settling on the curve of her hip. She shivers when he grasps the hem of her t-shirt, drawing it up so he can palm her side under her ribs.

Pulling away to catch her breath, she lets Seth press short, sharp kisses down the line of her jaw while his hand slides further up her ribs, thumb tucking just under the curve of her breast.

“ _Seth_ ,” she says, her voice a breathless whine that would, quite frankly, be embarrassing if this wasn’t the best thing that’s happened to her in _years_.

The universe _owes her_ this.

She pushes her fingers up into the shaved-short hair at his nape as Seth moves to mouth at her neck, set his teeth in the spot just above her shoulder, making her whine, “This okay, Princess?”

“Y-yeah,” she manages, and Seth slides his arm around her back, tucking her up against him and sliding a knee between her thighs. He pulls away from her neck, taps his forehead back to hers, eyes meeting in the darkness, “You believe me when I say I’m staying, yeah?”

Seth cups her cheek again, stroke his thumb over the curve and nods once, then presses his mouth to her forehead, lingering, “I believe you, Katie.”

Leaning in, Kate tucks her forehead against his neck, “Damn straight you do.”

His laughter rumbles though his chest, and Kate giggles as she settles back against him, eyes sliding shut. Seth runs his thumb in slow circles over the small of her back, and she can feel herself relaxing even deeper into his arms.

“You falling asleep on me, sweetheart?”

She nods against his neck, is about to answer when she has to pause, sneaking a hand between their bodies to muffle a sudden yawn, “We can revisit this in the morning, yeah?”

His intake of breath cuts off, and he mutters something under his breath that sounds a hell of a lot like, _what am I thinking, you need your sleep_ , before he cranes his neck a little and kisses her temple, “You bet your ass we’re going to revisit this in the morning. And tomorrow night, and all the days after that.”

Yawning again, Kate fights her exhaustion long enough to open her eyes and lean up, kissing the corner of his mouth, “I like that plan.”

“Good,” Seth tucks her against him, shifts so he’s lying on his back and helps her sprawl out against his side. “Good night, Princess.” 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm over on Tumblr at fortysevenswrites, where I rebagel indiscriminately, sometimes talk about sports, and scream about these idiot characters


End file.
